


Moon River

by Squiped_Mew



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Angst, Bonding Over Shared Trauma, Digital Art, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, It Gets Better, Miscommunication, Mishima Yuuki Has Anxiety, Panic Attacks, Persona User Mishima Yuuki, Persona User Suzui Shiho, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suzui Shiho Has A Palace, Unlikely Friendships, gotta love it ;), i promise this isnt as angsty as it seems, mew once again writing for something really niche, references to Persona 4, thats not a tag?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:27:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24024325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Squiped_Mew/pseuds/Squiped_Mew
Summary: Mishima hadn’t been planning on seeing Shiho today. Sure, he had said he would, but every time he said that, he never did. Not really. It was better to plan and not follow through then not plan at all, right? At the very least, you’ve got some kind of a weak excuse of that you tried, at the very least.(But stalling, Mishima knew, wasn’t trying at all.)—————-Shiho and Mishima attempt to work themselves out after Kamoshida confesses, and accidentally stumble onto the Metaverse in the process.
Relationships: Akechi Goro & Mishima Yuuki, Amamiya Ren & Mishima Yuuki, Kurusu Akira & Mishima Yuuki, Kurusu Akira & Suzui Shiho, Mishima Yuuki & Suzui Shiho, Suzui Shiho & Takamaki Ann
Comments: 9
Kudos: 38





	Moon River

**Author's Note:**

> Discord: https://discord.gg/7fGKDJ2
> 
> tumblr: https://squipedmew.tumblr.com/
> 
> youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1PtaW8dTzCzlDfb76VRU9Q

_Inhale._

_Exhale._

  
  


_Breathe._

  
  
  


Words pinged around in Mishima’s head as he stood in front of the hospital room door, the wooden number thirty-seven hung on it, fake gold paint scratched and chipping.

  
  


_Breathe._

_Breathe._

  
  


He repeats the mantra that his cousin had shown him, a way to breathe so that the air fills his chest and shoots around in his head like a ping pong ball. He imagines a ball of calm floating above his chest, trying to imitate what that therapist in the hospital drama he liked so much had said to that one guy - the tall main character, who wore glasses and was a real nerd, except when he wasn’t. But it’s a sad, small ball of calm, and it shrivels up and dies above his chest as soon as he can really get a picture of it in his mind. Stupid ball. Stupid TV show. Stupid fake theripist.

  
  


He hadn’t been planning on seeing Shiho today. Sure, he had said he would, but everytime he said that, he never did. Not really. It was better to plan and not follow through then not plan at all, right? At the very least, you’ve got some kind of a weak excuse of that you tried, at the very least.

(But stalling, Mishima knew, wasn’t trying at all.)

  
  
  


He digs his hands into the stems of the flowers he brought, red roses, the trimmed thorns still cutting into his palms, pink crescents left behind. He has to stop himself, because Shiho wouldn’t like it if he showed up with a bouquet of flowers that had blood all over it. She’s probably seen enough anyways. 

  
  


And with that morbidly dark though, Mishima knocks.

  
  


There’s a grunt on the other side, one that he vaguely recognizes as one of ‘you can come in’ He made that kind of noise a lot when someone knocked on his door when he was in a bad mood. 

He briefly reconsiders, maybe he should come back when Shiho’s feeling better. But that, that’s stalling too. And isn’t that all he ever does?

  
  


When he opens the door, he’s greeted with a small hospital room absolutely bursting with flowers. Vases, bouquets, even singular, lazily picked wildflowers were strewn on every flat surface, a few vases even being tucked away on the floor in the corner of the room. There were a lot of cards too, with sentiments such as ‘get well soon’, or ‘sorry for your loss’, and the such. 

Shiho’s in the center of all of this, her normally sleek and clean hair, tied back in a ponytail, is loose and undone, greasy strands of black strewn all across her face, sticking to her forehead. There’s a huge bandage stuck on her cheek, which is yellowish, and looks like it’s in need of changing. 

Despite the windows being open (as best as they can be, there are bars over the sills so that… well, he doesn’t need to finish that thought,) the room felt impossibly stuffy, smelling of hospital anesthetics and gauze. Mishima had never realized that gauze smelled like something until now, smelling dusty and worn. 

  


Shiho looks at his face, and then down at the flowers, and then back up to his face again. 

  
  


“Really?” She deadpans. 

Mishima swallows. 

“Sorry?” He says, though it’s more of a question than an apology, as he hides the flowers behind his back. “I didn’t know you had-”

“No, it’s fine.” Shiho replies, laying back down. “Just… put them wherever you can find a place or something.”

He looks around, then decides to squeeze them between a vase of lilies and yellow carnations, setting a dusty card on top of another bouquet, only for it to slide down and fall onto the floor. He stoops down to get it, but Shiho stops him.

“It’s fine. I don’t really give a crap about the guys who gave me that anyways.” She says, waving a hand dismissively. It’s the most empty Mishima has ever heard the girl - she doesn’t even sound sad. 

Just… broken. 

“...Hi.” He mumbles. 

“Hey Mishima.” Shiho replies, still not looking at him. 

  
  


There’s an awkward pause. 

  
  


“...How are you… doing?” Mishima asks quietly. 

“I feel like shit.” Shiho sighs, turning so that she’s not facing him anymore. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Oh.” Was that a good or bad thing? “Why?”

“You’re… kind of a chicken.” And well, if that blatantly obvious statement doesn’t cut him rather deep, he doesn’t know what does. 

“Yeah….”

  
  


Another pause. 

  
  


“...Can you go?” Shiho mumbles. Mishima shoots up, hands at his sides. 

“Uh - yeah!” He says, grabbing for his coat, which he had absent mindedly dropped along with the card. “Sorry to disturb you.”

  
  


“...Mhhm.” 

  
  
  


He dashes out before anything else can be said. After all, Shiho didn’t look too good. He really shouldn't disturb her. 

  
  


(And he knows she’s sad but what she had said had hurt him more than it should have.)

  
  
  


* * *

It takes him about a day before he realizes that he left his wallet in Shiho’s hospital room. Granted, there’s only about two thousand yen in there, but still. There’s also his student ID, which is pretty important if he wants to get student discounts, as well as, you know, identifying himself and stuff. Also, a small list is tucked into the back that has his passwords on it, including the one to the Phansite. And he really doesn’t want Shiho to think he’s more of a loser than she already does. (Then again, he doesn’t really know why he’s so hung up on her anyways.)

  
  


You can tell a lot about a person by their wallet, Mishima decides as he sits on the train on the way to the hospital. If it’s crowded with a ton of stuff, the person’s probably a busybody. If it’s full of money and is made of cheap fake leather, they’re probably the thrifty type. 

_Well, what about if it’s nearly empty?_ His brain asks. _Only a bit of money and an ID. What does that say about the person?_

_That they’re a chicken._ Shiho’s voice rings back in his own head. He lets his head loll back, laying it against the hard train wall, the rattling of the sides not doing much to help his headache. 

Maybe he could just text her and ask instead of having to go talk to her. Then again, he doesn’t have her number. He could ask someone that does, like Takamaki - but are they friends? Would it be weird to ask for Shiho’s number, considering he doesn’t even know her that well? Not to mention, he doesn’t quite know the relationship between him and the Phantom Thieves anyways. Akira’s the friendliest to him, but even that is layered with a bit of sacrine padding, like with most people. He doesn’t really know if the only reason Akira keeps him around is because he runs the Phansite and can relay requests. 

  
  


_He can just look at the Phansite himself._ The bitter part of his brain gripes. _If he really doesn’t like me, he shouldn’t even bother._

  
  
  


* * *

Mishima decides to not bring anything with him this time, even though he did consider bringing her a pastry of some sort. It’d be weird to bring her another gift, especially if he was only going to be there for a second. 

  
  


The nurse gives him a sympathetic look when he shows up again. “Are you here to see Ms. Suzui?” She asks, and it’s layered with pity of some sort. Does she think that they’re friends - or not friends anymore? 

  
  
  


He knocks again on the worn wooden door. There’s a solid thirty seconds of silence, before Shiho answers. 

“Mishima?” She asks, voice almost apprehensive. 

“Y-Yeah?” Was she mad? Did she not want to see him? Then again, she didn’t seem like she wanted to see anyone - 

“What are you doing here?” Shiho asks, and this time, she’s louder. 

“I - uh, forgot my wallet last time. I think it fell out of my coat pocket.” He replies, fiddling with his coat sleeves. “...Can I come in?”

  
  


“...Sure.” He opens the door tentatively. The room hasn’t changed much since last time, only now, as the very least, the bandages on her looked fresh. He could only imagine how grody dirty bandages were. 

“S-sorry.” he stutters out. “I think I dropped it last time, I’ll be out of your hair in a second-”

“Here.” And she procures the wallet from a thin slit in the mattress, one that looks like she might have cut it herself. “This is yours, right?”

“Oh - yeah.” He hadn’t expected Shiho to keep it, much less shove it in her mattress. He looks down at the hole, seeing paper sticking out of it. “What’s with the, uh, the hole?”

“...Why are you asking?” Shiho’s tone is almost defensive, and Mishima instinctively takes a step back. 

“Oh, you know - just, ah, wondering. You don’t have to answer, it’s-”

“No, it’s fine.” She sighs, leaning back against her thin pillow. “Sometimes the cleaning people throw out some of my cards and stuff - so I put the things I don’t want them to throw out down there.”

“Oh - oh! That’s - pretty smart.” It is, and he means it this time. He wonders what’s down there, but decides not to ask, figuring it’s probably a pretty private thing. 

  
  


There’s an audible pause in the conversation, the only sounds being the cars rushing by the hospital. 

  
  


“...Can I have your phone number?” He mumbles. Shiho opens her eyes, brow furrowed. 

“Why?” She asks, and again, it’s cold and accusatory.

“Oh - well… just in case I leave something here again, haha.” It’s a weak excuse, and he wants to shove the words back in his mouth as soon as he says them. “I mean - you know. Like my coat.”

“Or your wallet.” The question is not phrased like one, more like a snipe than anything else. 

“Y-yeah! Like my…. wallet.” And he picks up on the sarchasm too late, as usual. 

“...I just want to make sure you’re okay?” And Shiho visibly flinches at that, finally turning to look at him. 

“Uh-” Had he messed this up? “Did I say something -”

  
  


“ _Get_ . _Out_.” Flat and cold, but that sentence has more life in it than anything else he had heard her say since he had first showed up. Mishima gulps, and then does, bolting out of her room and down the stairs and out of the hospital and back to the train as fast as his tiny, bruised legs can carry him. 

* * *

  
  
  
  
  


And he audibly sighs at that text message, leaning back on his bed. He thought maybe Akira would want to talk about non-Phansite stuff, but then again, it was kind of why he was friends with him after all.

  
  


Total figures he’d just leave. Mishima turns his phone off, letting his arm drop off the bed. 

  
  


Maybe he could text Takamaki? Or Sakamoto? No, that was dumb. It’d be weird if he just brought up Shiho out of the blue. He didn’t want to seem creepy - creepier than he probably already did anyways.

  
  


_Why is your self esteem in the gutter Mishima?_ He can almost hear his cousin say. _Lighten up a bit. You hardly even know these people and they hardly know you. I’m sure they don’t hate you._

_You don’t know that._ The Shiho in his head replies. _They might. It’s pretty likely. You are kind of a pain in the ass._

_You_ **_think_ ** _you're a pain in the ass._ His cousin responds. _That’s subjective._

_Well -_

  
  


“Shut _up_ , brain.” Mishima huffs, throwing his arm over his face to try and get his thoughts to stop swirling.

  
  


(Why did he make Shiho sound so mean anyways? Before all this… stuff, she was perfectly nice.)

(Whatever. He was being stupid again anyways.)

  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  


After a few days, and Madarame confessing on live TV, Mishima caves, going over to a sickeningly pink cafe to buy a small blueberry muffin with a cat cookie on the top, wrapped up neatly inside this small little box. 

Frankly, he has no idea if Shiho even liked this kind of thing. But, at the very least, he wanted some closure on the swirling pit in his stomach. 

There’s a different nurse at the desk today, older looking and very much tired. She looks up from the magazine she’s reading, giving Mishima the stink eye. He lets her know where he’s going, and she mumbles something in response, waving her hand dismissively. 

  
  
  


When he approaches room thirty seven, he hears shouting behind it. It’s Shiho, unsurprisingly. 

“...Told you… don’t… useless!!” The few words that he can make out are not very good, and, before he can turn away, the door is opened by the nurse from before, who looks just as surprised to see him as he is surprised to see her.

“Mishima?” Shiho exclaims. He looks past the nurse, who smiles while passing him by, at Shiho, who looks rather incredulous. “What are you doing here?”

“...Is this a bad time?” He mumbles weakly, feeling all the blood rush into his face. Wow, good job Mishima, you messed it up-

  
  


“I - gah, no. Come in.” and he perks up at that, surprised. He was fully expecting her to just kick him out.

  
  


He sets the pastry down on her bed before she can say anything. “I wanted to apologize the other day.” He forces out, staring down at his shoes. “I don’t quite know what I said, but it must have been something, so -”

“Hey.” He looks up to see a rather mortified looking Shiho, holding her hands up in a sign of peace. “You’re… you’re good. I - didn’t mean to snap at you last time.”

“Oh.” The response is rather anticlimactic. He fully expected a shouting match, or something. “...Thanks?”

“No problem.” She opens the box, peering inside. “...A muffin?” 

“...I figured… you know, since everyone likes sweets-”

“I’m allergic to blueberries.” She says, arching one bushy eyebrow. 

Mishima blanches. “Oh - uh, sorry - I didn’t - uh - know??” Well, this was all messed up. Great job, Mishima. You did it again.

“...I guess it’s the thought that counts.” She takes the cat cracker off of the top of the muffin, and takes a bite out of it. “...This doesn’t have blueberries in it, right?” She asks. 

“Oh - no. Wait, why didn’t you ask that before you took a bite?” Mishima exclaims. Shiho shrugs. 

“You want this?”

“...Sure.” he reluctantly takes a bite out of the muffin. It’s good - really, really good, and he vaguely wonders that if he picked all the blueberries out, that Shiho could have eaten it or something. 

  
  


“I broke my phone.” 

“Huh?” Mishima asks with his mouth full.  
  


“You asked me for my phone number, and I don’t have one - my phone’s broken.” Shiho replies. 

“Oh.” He takes another bite to distract himself from the thick air of awkwardness that he could cut with a knife. “That sucks.”

“It’s fine. The doctors said I should stay away from the internet for a while anyways.” Shiho leans back in her bed, eyes trailing up to the ceiling. “I got kind of mad because I figured you were like, trying to ask me out or something.”

“What?” Mishima exclaims. “Why would you think I would try and ask you out when you’re - you know - in a hospital bed right now?”

“A few of the guys did.” She mumbles in response. 

“Assholes.” And he actually means it. 

“Yeah.” 

  
  


This time, the silence is more comfortable. Mishima finishes the muffin, while Shiho picks at the bandages on her arm. 

  
  


“...What were you shouting about before I got in here?” 

Shiho’s stance immediately goes from mildly relaxed to defensive, and Mishima quickly backpedals. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to - I’m just curious.”

“I’d rather not, actually.” Shiho responds.

“That’s fine.” 

A pause.

“You’re just going to drop it?” Shiho asks apprehensively. 

“...Yeah, why wouldn’t I?”

“No reason.” And that’s the end of that.

  
  
  
  
  
  


* * *

He comes by a few more times after that, mostly just for a few minutes. Mishima doesn’t know quite why, just that talking to Shiho is… nice, for some odd reason. 

She’s candid. Frank. She’s more direct to him than anyone else, really, with their thinly veiled dislike of him evident, despite how most people try to hide it behind pleasantries. Shiho says what she’s thinking and it isn’t always nice, but she’s never directly mean to him, chicken comment aside. A few times he peeks in to see Takamaki talking to Shiho, and he runs and hides in the bathroom until she leaves. He doesn’t know why seeing Takamaki or Sakamoto or heck, even Akira, is so weird, but maybe it’s because now he has a point of comparison?

Or maybe he’s just overthinking it, Mishima realizes, as he rolls over in his bed. The time’s about twelve, and his parents are long since asleep - they were never night owls like him. He inhales, and exhales, and again, tries to do what that lady on TV had said to do if you feel stressed, but again, it does squat. Rolling onto his side, and fumbling around on his desk for his phone, he decides to look it up.

  
  


What greets him, and he almost misses it, is a small red app tucked onto the last page of his phone. It simply reads META NAVIGATOR, and Mishima can distinctly remember not downloading it. When opened, it simply has a microphone icon, one which you would click to speak. 

He knows this trick. Even if he turns the mic off, it’ll stay on, so hackers can spy on him. He read about this somewhere. _Well, nice try hackers,_ Mishima thinks as he deletes the app in one swift notion. _You can’t fool me._

  
  


He puts his phone back down, only for it to buzz again. He squints at the bright light of his phone, only realizing it’s Akira again.

  
  
  


Huh. It’s weird. Although, come to think of it, his mind hadn’t really been on the Phansite these past few days. And he hadn’t texted Akira about it in a while either. Was that his weird way of… checking on him?

No. Couldn’t be. The site was exploding, after all, and Akira probably wanted to know what was going on. 

  
  


He types out _‘check the site yourself’_ before thinking better of it, deleting the text he was about to send, and powering his phone off. 

  
  
  
  
  


* * *

“I got chocolate cakes!” Mishima exclaims, throwing the door to room thirty seven. Shiho sits up, looking as if she had just been laying there, blank eyes lighting up. 

“They don’t have blueberry in them, do they?” She asks, and, despite her cool tone, she seems genuinely happy about it.

“Nope. I checked the ingredients list so - this is kind of a makeup gift, I guess.” he hands it to her, and, she looks happy, if only for a second, before the smile slips off her face.

“Thanks - I’m not hungry though.”

“Oh.” Well, that was a surefire way to kill any of the lighter atmosphere he had tried so hard to build. “You… sure?”

“Yeah.” 

Another pause.

“Why do you keep coming back to see me?” Shiho finally asks, and the question is almost refreshing after their few sessions of forced small talk. 

“...I dunno.” And he means it. He really doesn’t know why he keeps coming back. “I guess I just… think you’re cool?”

“Think I’m cool?” And Shiho sounds more surprised than she has any right to be. “Why do you think I’m cool?”

  
“Uhh-” And here’s where he messed it up. Mishima was horrible about putting feelings into words. “I… can’t really put my finger on it - I guess it’s because you’re real?”

“What?” Now it’s Shiho’s turn to sound surprised. “What’d you mean?”

“I mean you’re honest.” And words start tumbling out of his mouth before he can stop it. “I mean - like, you say what you’re feeling even if it isn’t great and you tell me when I’m being dumb but like, not in a super mean way or something. No one ever does that. They all just pretend that they like me when it’s super obvious to anyone with an IQ over two that they don’t.” An inhale. “I admire that about you.”

  
  


There’s a very long pause, one of about a minute and forty two seconds. Mishima would know, he was counting.

  
  
  
  


“You admire me.” Shiho deadpans. “Me, Shiho Suzui, the girl who flung herself off of a roof a month ago.”

And there it is, the fact that they had been avoiding for as long as he had been coming to this hospital. It was the biggest elephant in the room probably in the history of elephants in the room ever, and Mishima couldn't help flinching when it was brought up.

Shiho notices. “What, so we can’t talk about it?” She mutters. “Is it illegal now?” 

“It’s not.” Mishima mumbles. “I just... didn’t expect you to be so frank about it.”

“Yeah, me either.” There’s another pause, and it’s maybe a little less awkward then the one before, but it’s still tense, and Mishima can still cut the tension with a knife if he wanted to. In the proverbial sense, that is. 

“...Sorry.” Shiho mumbles. 

“You don’t have anything to be sorry about.” Mishima replies, and the words sound thick coming out of his mouth, but he means them. “I mean… you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

“No I -” Shiho opens her mouth, and then closes it. “I want to, it’s just -” Inhale. Exhale. Mishima realizes that Shiho’s doing the same thing he does when he’s stressed. “I… don’t at the same time? Does that make any sense?”

“I think.” 

“It just feels like vomting, whenever I want to talk about it - like I think I’ll feel better afterwords, but it hurts to do so, and it hurts to keep it in, and I just feel like I’m stuck, inside this stupid prison of a hosptal room and in this bed, and in my own _mind_ \- god, I just -”

  
  


“ _Candidate found.”_ The electronic voice rings out from his phone before he even realizes it. Both of them jolt up, and Mishima pulls his phone out of his pocket, opening it to find that not only is the weird red app back, it’s been open and recording this whole time. 

“...What’s that?” Shiho asks. 

“I… I thought I deleted it-” Mishima stutters. “I think my phone got hacked?”

“ _Starting navigation._ ” And the room shudders, ripples of red and black swirling out of the screen, like heat waves on a hot summer day. Mishima stumbles back, back against the wall, Shiho turning to him.

“What’s going on?” She exclaims, eyes wide with fear. 

“I don’t -”

  
  
  
  
  


Silence.

  
  
  
  


It takes a minute to realize that he’s on the floor, more specifically, on his ass. Shiho is too, having tumbled out of her hospital bed.

It also takes him a minute to realize that he’s also not in room thirty seven anymore. 

  
  


The room is - well, it’s not the one they were in before, that’s for sure. It seems similar at first glance, but the differences are glaring to anyone who looked for more than half a second. For one, the flowers had exploded out of their vases and bouquets, thick vines tangling through the walls, some even coming through holes on the outside. But the biggest change, of course, was the spiral staircase, sitting directly in the center of the room, tower above them all. Mishima had to blink a few times to confirm that, in fact, the ceiling was now very much higher, the spiral staircase shooting up into the gloom. 

He looks to the door where he came from - but there are bars over it, and not the thin ones like at the hospital, no, thick, iron bars, like the ones you'd see in a prison. The window’s gotten the same treatment as well - it seems the only way out is up. 

  
  


Then, he turns to look at Shiho, who is… not looking great. As a matter of fact, she was on a heap on the ground, breathing heavily, and she was shaking so bad that Mishima thought he could hear her bones rattling. “Shiho?!” He exclaims, rushing over and leaning down to make sure she was okay. “Are you alright - are you having a heart attack?”

“No - I -” She holds up a hand and Mishima instinctively moves a few feet back. ‘I can - I -” She pulls at the roots of her hair, almost as if to snap herself back to reality. 

“Oh god - I should call someone -” He pulls out his phone to call one-one-nine, but he’s got no service. As a matter of fact, his whole phone is glitchy and laggy, pixel count so low you could probably count it on one hand.

“No, don’t -” And Shiho wobbles up, pulling herself over to a wall where she can prop her back against. Mishima stands a few feet away, wanting to say something but knowing he doesn’t really understand what’s going on and he’d probably make it worse. 

And briefly, he can hear her mumbling numbers to herself. She was counting to ten. 

And then twenty.

And then fifty. 

And she stops at one hundred and twenty four, the color having returned to her face, unclenching her fists, where Mishima could see little divots from where her nails had dug into her palms. 

“...Are you okay?” He asks quietly.

“Y - yeah, I’m - I’m fine. Sorry.” Shiho isn’t looking at him, eyes darting around the room, until she looks at one of the giant thorny vines and locks her eyes onto it. 

“...Suzui?”

“Where are we?” She asks, still not looking at him. 

“I… uh,” And he looks up into the gloom above him. “I dunno.” He manages to respond weakly.

Shiho bites her chapped lip. “Do you think we were kidnapped?” She asks, just as candidly as before. 

Mishima sucks in air between his teeth, panic rising in his stomach. “I - oh god, were we?” He asks no one in particular, before mentally slapping himself and trying to get back on track. “Wait, no - we were just in the hospital room. That doesn’t make sense.”

“What time is it?” Mishima pulls out his phone to check. 

“It says here it’s two-ninteen.”

“When did you get here?”

“I dunno… I think I showed up at your room at like… two??” Running a hand through his scraggly hair, Mishima exhales. “It hasn’t been that long.”

“We could have been drugged.” Shiho points out. 

“Why are you jumping to the worst possible conclusion?!” 

“I mean - you got any better ideas?” And he might, he has at least heard of some weird things happening, both on the news, and on the Phansite forums, that all centered around the Phantom Thieves. But he wasn’t a Phantom Thief. He was just Mishima. So didn’t that disqualify this from having anything to do with that?

He turns back to look at Shiho, whose eyes were still firmly fixated at the thorny vine, and waves a hand in front of her eyes. “Hello?” He asks. “Anyone home?”

“I’m _trying_ to not look at anything flat.” She snipes, and continues to stare at the vine. Mishima blinks. What on earth does that mean, not looking at anything flat? Why?

He decides not to ask, instead turning to run his hand over the worn staircases’s railing. “...Hey, what do you think is up here?” He asks. 

“Maybe the roof?” Shiho responds. “I mean, that seems to be the only logical conclusion.” 

“R-Right.” And he’s tempted to chicken out like he always does, to just sit here until they starve or wake up from this weird dream he’s been having, but…

Something flickers inside of him. Almost like a voice. 

And he needs to know what’s up there. He needs to go up. 

He needs to be brave. 

  
  
  


Inhale. 

Exhale. 

Breathe.

It never does much, but today, it doesn’t matter. 

“Shiho, I’m going up there.” He says. “Do you want to come with me?”

“...ican’twalk.” Shiho mumbles, and it takes Mishima a minute to decipher what she says. 

“You… can’t walk?” He asks. 

“Why do you think I’m in a hospital bed all the time, because I’m tired?” When Mishima nods, Shiho sighs. “Well, you’re partially right - but - uh… my legs aren’t exactly in the… best shape right now.”

“Ah.” That explains a lot. “Well, breaking both your legs can really do that to you!” His awkward attempt at humor is met with a half hearted and forced laugh, and Mishima turns away. “Well… if anything happens… I’ll - yell really loud. Is that okay?”

“Sure.” And Shiho’s eyes return to staring at the vine. “Don’t die, okay?”

  
  


It’s a rather small encouragement - probably not even really counting as one - but Mishima’s bar for encouragement is almost as low as his self esteem. And it helps, to some extent. 

  
  


He kinda needed to hear that.

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


The stairs went up high. 

  
  


Really high. 

  
  


SUPER high. Higher than anticipated. 

Like, Mishima was pretty sure he had been going up said stairs for about ten minutes?? His quads hurt, his eyes stung from squinting in the fog, and he was just… really tired. He was seriously considering just giving up and going back down - it’d certainly be easier than going up. What if the staircase was just endless, like that one from Mario?

_Slow down._ The nagging voice of his cousin says to him. _Take it slow. Catch your breath. I’m fairly sure this isn't endless._

Mishima does, taking a seat on the stairs, massaging his aching joints. So far, what he had gathered from the barred windows he could see was that it was just as foggy outside as it was in here, and that they had to be in the middle of nowhere, considering the lack of… well, any surrounding noise. No cars, no planes, no people talking, nothing. Being in the city his whole life, the sudden silence felt really eerie and foriegn. 

  
  
  


Mishima stood, slowly starting to trudge up again.

  
  


After about five minutes, he noticed the fog was thinning, just a little bit. 

  
  


After a few more, he saw that light was starting to shoot through the mist. 

  
  


And finally - finally. The stairs stopped. The railing ended, and he let his hand trail off. 

There was a trapdoor right above him, made of thick and dusty wood. He runs his hand over it, and feels a few splinters of wood stick to his palms. He pulls them out.

Again, he considers going back down. He has no clue where they are or why they’re here. He doesn’t even know what’s up there - maybe a sentry gun, waiting to gun down prisoners or something?

Maybe there’s nothing up there. That’d be the worst case scenario.

  
  


Mishima exhales, and then pushes the trapdoor open.

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> fake text messages dotcom wouldnt let me get rid of the water mark HNNNNNGH
> 
> enjoy this rather shorter work of mine! mishima and shiho especially kinda got the shaft in p5, not to mention i thought theyd have a great dynamic, so.... yeah. here is this. 
> 
> Leave Kudos if you enjoyed! (or don't, that's cool too)


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